


Compassion

by orphan_account



Series: Affinities [2]
Category: Rammstein
Genre: Angst, Cause of Death Mentioned, Cigarettes, Cooking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flake Has A Heart, M/M, Psychic Abilities, Psychic Medium, non-graphic description of death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:16:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22859083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Flake avoids his ability as a psychic medium. However the death of his next door neighbor's boyfriend forces him to confront his power and what it means to himself as well as those around him.Supernatural Abilities AU
Relationships: Paul Landers/Christoph Schneider
Series: Affinities [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1638910
Comments: 8
Kudos: 21





	Compassion

**Author's Note:**

> Another AU of the superpowers series I'm doing. I initially wanted to give this power to Till, but thought Flake would handle it in a more interesting way. 
> 
> Brief description of character death, but it's not graphic - only given a cause and a mention of medical intervention.

_“He that does good for good’s sake seeks neither paradise nor reward, but he is sure of both in the end.”_ – William Penn

A faint rap comes at the door so obscured by the music that the doctor could have easily missed it, but he does indeed hear it. Looking at the time, his clock on the nearby wall indicates an hour that he’d think a solicitor wouldn’t intrude upon, especially as he’s right in the middle of preparing his supper; otherwise, he’s not expecting any guests. While the urge does exist to simply ignore whoever it is, he has to admit that while he is a man who is greatly concerned with himself and scarcely cares what others think of him, he is tied to the conventions of politeness, and he finds it to be rude to leave someone lingering in the hallway like a fool.

As he leaves the dough for his pie crusts, he swipes his hands against each other, and a cloud of flour blooms into the air before falling into the sink; he turns the heat of the pan from high to low. For the sake of being able to hear his unexpected visitor, he moves to his stereo and turns the volume dial down to nothing, and the sounds of Mozart’s 29th symphony end at once.

Flake squints through the peephole in the center of his door and is delighted to find that he doesn’t have to deal with some stranger to fake niceties to, but it is his neighbor Paul, who he is always happy to see – him and his partner Christoph are good kids. What started out as smoking next to each other on their respective balconies became light conversation which became a shared friendliness and camaraderie. Flake knows they are without family, and so is he, and so he figures it is much their intent to make sure he’s taken care of as much as it has become his. It became that once or twice a month they’d share dinner at each other’s places and check in on each other. Birthday’s don’t go forgotten, wherein Paul brings a homecooked strudel and Flake throws together a small cheesecake for the both in return; some holidays, likewise, they’re sure to keep each other company. Thoughtful, kind people all around, they are two of very few people that don’t get on Flake’s nerves just with their existence. 

He greets Paul with a grin. “Hey, Paul. What’s going on?” he says as he swings the door open, but only after concluding his greeting does he notice that there’s something off about him. Typically chirpy and upbeat, his neighbor looks oddly dejected and stricken, lips tightly pursed and his usually wide bright eyes dulled and swollen, and his typically pallid complexion is splotched red and white. Which instantly does not bode well for Flake. 

“Sorry to bother you, Doc. Um. I was hoping you could turn your music down – I have a really bad headache and um. _I’m sorry,”_ Paul says, and he visibly starts to tear up, and it concerns the doctor, enough that he reaches out to hold both of his shoulders and leans down to his level as a sob wracks through the younger man.

“Paul? Paul, what’s wrong? What’s going on?” he asks, and he doesn’t expect it when Paul walks towards him and wraps his arms around his middle and pulls him close, burying his face in Flake’s chest. There are no objections that cross his mind as he returns the embrace in a show of comfort; Flake can admittedly be cold, but he’s not soulless. 

After a moment of wracking sobs that vibrate throughout Paul and crack out of his mouth, he tells Flake, hardly intelligible: “Christoph got killed in a car accident a couple days ago, and I don’t know what to do with myself, Doctor.”

Flake wraps his arms around the young man as he collapses into him, but what Paul can’t see as he buries his face in the doctor’s shirt is the fact that standing in the hallway behind him is Christoph, looking alive and well. While Flake’s particular area of practice is not in trauma care, it is clear to him that Christoph does not have the appearance of someone that has been involved in a fatal car accident. No. He's in one piece, showing no signs of trauma, and his shirt and jeans aren't damaged or bloodstained. Then... 

Flake’s eyes widen and he swallows hard. No, not alive, he realizes quickly, evidenced by the golden luminescence that frames his head that he’s only ever observed in the apparitions he’s been able to see his whole life. The shine that designates their exaltation above mortal existence; something higher. Quite the same way that the old saints used to be painted in the old churches. There are names for them: specters, ghosts, shades, apparitions, spirits.

He had been having a good streak, up until this moment, pretending that he does not have this gift. His mother told him that it can be a beautiful gift to have, as long as he used it for the right reasons. His decision to go into medicine was mutually exclusive of his ability to see the dead, but when he realized that his talents could be put to good use to help in a way that others cannot, he thought it was a good thing if he was able to utilize it in performance of his duties. Why have this ability if you won’t use it?

For a while, it was an effort that he was happy to give, and it made his position as a doctor more gratifying in knowing that he was able to at least offer some help in the instances where medicine failed. But it stopped working – the compassion that he had been so willing to offer broke inside of him, and eventually, he couldn’t take it anymore. It gnawed at his psyche, the pain that he had to see every day. Spirits screaming out to be heard, begging their loved ones to listen; how horrible the pain of death and all of the victims that it leaves behind in its path. Mothers of children, husbands of wives; the lost dreams, broken promises, the things yet to be seen or accomplished, the love vested in the person who had drawn their last breath and ceased to be. To be around all of the sorrow, trying to be what everyone needed him to be was simply too much. Flake had to learn it the hard way: if you spend too long trying to give yourself away for the benefit of others, you forget to live. In the end, all you have is yourself. And Flake had to choose himself. 

Now, he has been placed directly at the altar of another problem for him to solve. There is a trepidation that exists in him, that tells him that he’s done doing this, and he’s been done, and that he shouldn’t start again. It hurts too much to make oneself so vulnerable all the time, subject to other people’s pain and grief. Yet as he holds the shattered pieces of Paul in his arms, however, trembling as he weeps against him, he makes the decision that he can offer him this gratis without making it a habit. To do good for people who have been good to him. A one-time favor for a someone that he believes needs this. This is enough for him.

Flake overcomes his trepidations and makes deliberate eye contact with Christoph’s spirit as he lingers in the hallway and holds it. It is a moment before Christoph realizes that it simply doesn’t make sense, that someone can see him. He whips his head behind him, wondering if Flake is looking through him at something else, but there is no hanging art, no passerby, nothing else for Flake to be seeing. When Christoph looks back at him, Flake gives him a curt nod to offer a semblance of acknowledgement that he hopes the shade recognizes. Christoph quietly narrows his eyes and furrows his brow at this, baffled, but still unsure.

_“Doctor?”_ Christoph speaks, hoping that the doctor can hear him.

Giving the specter a pointed look, he mouths _‘YES’_ and subtly raises an index finger to indicate that he needs a moment before they can talk. Christoph purses his lips and looks bewildered, but it goes unnoticed. The living must be tended to before consorting with the dead. 

Paul’s sobbing tapers off into whimpers before becoming silent sniffles, and he peels himself from the doctor once he’s dried himself out for the time being. He turns his face away, looking a tad embarrassed that he unraveled like this, and he shakes his head as he wipes at his cheeks with the hem of his sleeve. “I’m sorry, Doc, thank you for –”

“It’s okay, really. I know that this must be hard for you,” Flake tells him earnestly. He understands; while it was unexpected of Paul to do this, it decidedly doesn’t draw any negativity out of the doctor. Grief can be a very lonely process, he knows, and Flake acknowledges that maybe Paul needed, perhaps still needs, someone. Compassion isn’t something he’s allowed himself to feel for a while, finding it much easier to feel apathetic; much less messier and less taxing. With the deliberate resolution to allow himself to be open, he allows himself to feel that heartbreak, to connect with Paul, and he tells him, “If you need to talk, you know I’m here just next door.” And he means it as much as he can.  
  
“I don’t want to be a burden,” Paul dismisses, touching his wrist to his nose, shaking his head all the while. Reaching around the counter, he rips a paper towel off and hands it to the young man, who immediately folds it up and begins to put his appearance back into order. 

Flake hardly knows how to comfort someone in mourning; he’s gotten plenty used to giving bad news and walking away and not dealing with the aftermath. That’s easy in comparison to being there for someone, helping them process, being the person that people look to for solace. Even after handling so many souls and the families they left behind, he never figured out how to express his sympathies in a way that mattered, and he struggles then to do as Paul stands before him.

Then he remembers that he has dinner in progress in his kitchen. When his father died when he was young, all of the kind women in the village brought them dishes of food for them to eat from while they grieved. It was a true show of solidarity that made a horrible time easier, not having to think about cooking. Indication that people cared. Aside from that, he hopes to create a little bit of normalcy even just in their typical friendly habit of sharing a meal together like they try to do regularly. Flake does not know if there is really anything he can do for Paul to support him, but he figures that listening to him and offering him some of his dinner is a good measure.

“You know, I’m in the middle of making dinner, and I know you’re probably not thinking about food right now. If you’d like, you could have some,” he explains as he carefully looks at the young man. Paul turns his face towards the doctor and looks at him with wide, vulnerable eyes, and Flake is afraid that he may start crying again. “Only if you’d like to,” he adds.

“That would be very nice of you, Doc,” Paul says through his ragged, ruined breathing, and he goes in to hug the doctor again. Flake can’t help but smile a bit despite himself. Seldom does he get to feel as though he’s doing the right thing.

The doctor sees that Christoph still stands in the hallway, existing in a stasis of irresolution. Flake would like to get him alone so he can talk to him and see what is going on, what’s tethering him here, because the souls of the dead don’t stay on this plane unless they have something left to do before they go. Little effort goes into coming up with a good move to get him and Christoph alone, and perhaps it’s that wit that got him through med school.

“Hey Paul, tell you what,” Flake tells him as he parts from him to look down at him once more. Jerking his head towards the living room, he tells Paul, “See my cigarettes on the coffee table?”

Briefly turning his head, Paul looks at the blue and gold package on the table. “Yeah?” 

“They’re the expensive, fancy cigarettes that I let you try a couple months ago. Remember those?”

Paul’s eyes brighten up a little as he looks up at the doctor again, and the edges of his lips curl into the ghost of a smile as he nods.

“I know just how much you like those, so take the whole pack, go out on my balcony, and get yourself some air,” Flake tells him.

“They’re like five bucks a cigarette! Are you sure?” Paul questions, appearing instantly more lively. God knows how many times they’ve been smoking next to each other on their balconies and Flake’s been harassed for one of his sweet-smelling smokes. It’s the least that Flake can do in the moment. He can always go get some more.

“Positive. Dinner will be done in about twenty-ish minutes, so you can kill some time before it’s ready. And then if you want to talk, we can talk.”

“Thank you again, Doc,” Paul says, Flake watches as he shuffles past the doctor, snatching the pack off his coffee table, and hits the balcony, closing the sliding glass door behind him. He can hear the metal chair scrape against the concrete, and the noise of a lighter flicking on.

Turning to the open door, he focuses on Christoph, the golden aura hanging around his head. It’s a strange feeling to acknowledge the dead again after ignoring them for so long, it almost enabled the doctor to forget that he had this strange ability. Almost. Breathing out his tension in a huff, he pushes away his own anxieties, intent on doing what is right, and addresses the shade directly. “Come in, Christoph.”

_“Can you really see me?”_ The apparition questions, cocking his head to the side, brow knit.

“If I couldn’t see you, then I’d be addressing an otherwise empty hallway,” Flake tells him flatly, his arm making a gesture that invites Christoph to enter. At this, he moves into the apartment, a poignant lack of footsteps tapping on the hardwood despite his feet striking the ground. Flake shuts the door and moves back to where his dinner awaits. 

_“Can you see just me or…?”_

Flake sets himself back onto his supper, turning the heat back up to high before lifting the lid and giving his goulash a stir. Shrugging, perhaps a little too blasé in the way that he openly admits that he can see dead people, he tells the spirit, “Not just you. It’s all ghosts, pretty much ever since I was a kid. I just don’t advertise it. Doesn’t help me look sane.”

_“Either way, I’m happy you can see me. It’s been hard being ignored.”_

“But what a sorry state to see you in, kiddo,” Flake shakes his head. Wasn’t it just the week before that they had met up with each other? And they had all been alive and well? Time doesn’t necessarily exist without bearing on life or death; people die when it’s least expected all the time. That doesn’t make it any less disturbing or shocking when it does happen. 

_“Yeah. I wasn’t expecting it. Everything happened really fast. I didn’t realize I was dead until I was watching the paramedics work on me twenty feet away,”_ Christoph recounts, crossing his arms. His eyes stare at an undetermined point at the wall behind Flake, empty and distant. With a tone of finality, he shrugs and continues. _“Not much they could do though.”_

Christoph leans his pelvis against the counter across from Flake and claps his hands upon the surface, looking at the doctor with a mixture of confusion and expectation. Flake can sense that he wants to say something, that there are words that hang on the tip of his tongue. The matter of what to say seems to be what slows him from speaking. Flake works on finishing lining his pie tin with the crust and waits for him to talk – after all, what happens next all hinges on what Christoph wants. The doctor is just there to say what needs saying, disregarding what his own personal attachments are here. He’s patient enough to wait. 

At last, the specter speaks, and his brow is knit, which Flake interprets as confusion. _“I thought when I died, I was supposed to, I don’t know, go to heaven or somewhere. I don’t get how this whole ghost thing works.”_

“Me neither, kiddo,” Flake says, briefly looking away from his work to train his gaze on Christoph. “I can’t say that I’ve ever died.” 

The sharp wittedness is hardly welcomed in the context of his death and dying if Christoph narrowing his eyes at him is anything to go by. It truly has been awhile since he’s really done this – he used to be a lot more sensitive with the spirits he was dealing with. Whether it’s because it’s because of their degree of familiarity or because he conditioned himself to be cold (or even a little bit of both) doesn’t matter; he knows that he should be softer. Trying to lighten the mood a little for the both of them in these circumstances may not be what’s needed as of current. Flake relents and his tone turns warmer, but firm. 

“Well. You’re still here, when some people skip the whole ghost thing. You’ve not gone on to heaven, or paradise, or wherever ghosts go when they’re done with their time here. Which is an indicator to me that you’ve got something you need to do before you go,” he explains, voice soft but unfaltering. 

A small grin curls Christoph’s mouth, eyebrow rising upwards. _“You’re saying I have unfinished business, Doctor?”_

Flake shrugs. “If that’s what you want to call it, sure.” Having cracked his can of cherry pie filling open, he pours it into the pie tin and then works on making the top crust. “A lot of people die without doing things or saying things that they needed to. When people died under my care, I’d help them resolve whatever it is that they needed help with.”

_“Isn’t that a huge cliché?”_ Christoph says, a breathy laugh tucked into the middle of his sentence. The doctor gives him a shrug in return; everybody has their reasons for sticking around, none of them worse than another.

“Maybe so. But maybe clichés exist for a reason. Because they happen over and over again. They’re common elements of being a person. Do you think you have unfinished business, here, Christoph?” Flake says, and he examines him. Christoph looks down at his hands, as if he’s finding his answers in the texture of his skin. Wordlessly, he turns his head to look out towards the balcony, to which the doctor follows suit, and he can see Paul, curled into a small bundle in the chair, presumably looking out over their city. The way that Christoph looks out to his lover exudes an incredible longing and passion that evidences a resolution: love doesn’t die because people do. The love that exists in Christoph was there until the pull of his last breath, the last beat of his heart, and didn’t stop existing because he did. 

_“Who is ever really ready to die?”_ Christoph ponders, gently shaking his head as he turns his head and looks at the doctor once again. _“I sure as hell wasn’t. There’s so much that I wanted to do. Being crushed in a tangle of steel wasn’t what I wanted for myself. Or for him.”_

“There’s something then, you want to do for his sake? For yours?” 

_“Maybe so.”_ There’s a beat, and Flake gives him an anticipatory glance, and the spirit continues. _“There are a million things that I want to say to him. How much I love him, how much he made me happy.”_

“You don’t think he knows that already? I’m certain that he knows how much you loved him. I’ve known you both long enough – it’s easy to see it.” 

_“He doesn’t know that I bought him a ring. I hid it on one of the shelves of the bookcase in the living room.”_ Flake furrows his brow and shakes his head. Fuck. God fucking damn it. How fucking cruel, to have this happen to them. So unfair. _“I put it behind my section of shelving – I knew he’d never poke around my civil engineering books and romance novels. I just never got around to giving it to him. That’s one thing I want before I go – let him know that I wanted him to be my forever.”_

Flake’s eyes burn with the tears. His hands have frozen in their work as he gazes hard at Christoph. All the wasted potential, broken along with the glass and steel that killed him. How many happy years could they have had? What is it, that goes unknown? What is it, that once existed that has now died with him? Even if Flake is admittedly a bit of a pessimist, finding the idea of love unattainable for himself, he could at least see that Paul and Christoph were something that was built to last. What is there to find, now, in the wreckage not only of the accident, but of the life they had built together?

Christoph looks at an indeterminate point behind Flake and his voice becomes brittle, shaking his head. _“But while I want him to know this, I don’t want him to linger on what we never got to do – I want him to think about everything we did do. I want to remind him of all our good memories, like when he braided chamomile flowers into my hair on our first date. When he tried making me a birthday cake and he switched sugar for salt. I want to remind him of how things were good.”_ Christoph is teary, and he touches his fingers to the corners of his eyes. 

_“I can’t go unless he really knows what I wanted for us. I want him to have that ring. And I want to know he’s going to be okay. I want him to be okay.”_

Without his permission, the tears roll over Flake’s waterline, and while he’d gotten into the habit of thinking he was cold and unmovable, hearing this is undeniably stirring. He dashes the tears away with the back of his hand and centers himself in the moment once more.

“Is that all you want to tell him?”

_“Yes. I guess all I really want is a real goodbye.”_

“I can try telling him for you,” is what he manages to say, and he bends down, pie tin in hand to put it in the already heated oven. “I’ll talk to him over dinner, and if there’s anything else you want to have me say, you can chime in and tell me. I want to make sure that you get everything out so that you can go and be at peace.”

_“Thank you,”_ the spirit says, a smile spreading across his face. _“I really appreciate this.”_

“No problem at all. It’s the least I can do for a friend,” the doctor says, and he turns on the tap to wash his hands. It’s his curse to live with, but as long as he’s able to make some good out of it, and he knows that telling Paul what Christoph has asked of him will be good, then perhaps it can be worth it. He had forgotten that sometimes, it can be worth it.

Christoph gives him a steady gaze for a moment as he watches him dry his hands before he grins broadly and chuckles lightly. _“You know Doc, I never would’ve guessed that you actually have a heart.”_

Flake’s eyes narrow to appear sharp and cutting, and he attempts to flatten his lips into a line that indicates opposition, but the corners of his mouth lightly turn up into a smile, betraying his lighthearted nature. “Don’t tell anyone.”

_“Or what?”_ Christoph challenges, leaning a bit over the counter.

“Or I may just have to kill you.” This gets a good laugh out of them both.

Quiet falls between them again, as Flake turns to poke at his goulash, estimating another couple of minutes on the cook time remaining. Eyes dart briefly to the porch to see how Paul is doing, and he is still smoking, hand lazily raising to his lips to take another hard pull. Probably making his way through the entire pack – Flake doesn’t terribly mind. Christoph looks out towards Paul too, and Flake can see the pain that exists in his face – the worry, the sorrow. But he also sees how much love exists for Paul just in the way that his eyes soften. Love doesn’t have to die, not the moment that the final breath is pulled, not even in the rotting of flesh and crumbling of bone. It is a presence that still lives within the lives that love touches. Certainly, Flake knows that it exists now and will always exist in Paul, even if Christoph cannot be around to offer it any longer.

_“If you can, could you do me a favor, Doctor?”_ Christoph presses, still maintaining his gaze upon his lover’s back on the balcony.

“I’ll do the best I can,” Flake laces his fingers together and presses his elbows into the counter as he leans in over it, facing the spirit, though he does not look back at him. He’s always hated promises, hated obligations that he felt weren’t his own to keep, but he figures if he’s breaking all of his own rules and standards anyway that another one won’t hurt.

_“After I’m gone, please just look after him for a while. Make sure that he’s taking care of himself. Eating, showering, going to work. Make sure he keeps living. Don’t let his life stop because mine did.”_

A reasonable request.

“Okay. I will.”

\- 

“So you like it?”

Paul pulls his plate towards himself, as though he’s afraid of predators taking his score, and hums around his mouthful of food before swallowing. “Jesus fuck – _yes,”_ he practically moans.

With the way that he’s shoving spoonfuls into his mouth, it’s as though he hasn’t eaten in days, though Flake wouldn’t find it surprising if that’s the case. Stress and shock and grief can steal your hunger more than anything else can. It had not been his intention to try to make Paul feel obligated to stay for a meal, but it appears to him that Paul was more than willing to stay and eat, even if it had not been his initial intention when coming to Flake’s door. Perhaps he needed a distraction, and Flake is just happy that he’s able to provide a constructive one at the very least. 

“Doctor,” Paul says, buttering up a piece of bread. “What’s your secret?”

Usually he would opt to drag it out, dangle it over Paul’s head, but Flake decides to indulge him with no hassle – no need to make his night harder than need be. “I make it the same way everyone else makes it, I think. But I add just a little bit of sugar. Not too much. Half a spoon, if that.”

Making a noise of affirmation with a mouth full of a bread roll and goulash, he nods, seemingly satisfied with the mystery ingredient; ravenous, he leaves scarcely any time between when he swallows and when he’s chewing again.

Following suit, Flake continues at his meal. In the silence that falls between them, he wants to fill it by addressing the things that Christoph told him to. So that they can both start finding peace. The shade lies on the couch nearby, his weightless body failing to leave an imprint in the cushions, observing Paul for some of the few moments he has left as a presence on Earth. 

Seeing and acknowledging the dead used to make Flake think about his own ending a lot. If his gift meant that he’d be stuck as a spirit, lingering forever, or if there was a consolation of getting to skip straight to the hereafter. Why he has this gift, if some divine force gave it to him, he doesn’t know. He probably never will – though he never really thought to look for the answers anyway. Though, for his trouble in helping people cross over to the other side, he thinks that he deserves as little fuss as possible. He certainly hopes that good deeds get rewarded. 

“I hope I made you feel somewhat better,” the doctor states as he scrapes up the last remnants of his meal before pushing the plate away, deciding to wait before he makes a decision on having more.

“You did,” Paul replies, not looking at him, but rather into his empty dinnerware. With a gentle clatter of his spoon against his plate, he sets it down and follows suit in Flake’s movement of the dish.

“It would be okay if I didn’t,” Flake tells him earnestly, lacing his fingers before resting them over the swell of his well-fed belly.

“You really did,” the younger man insists, giving Flake a pointed, earnest look. “For now. But that’s what I needed.” Good. Flake is always well-intended, even in times that it doesn’t seem to be so. Though sometimes, he could try harder, and he’d be the first one to admit that.

“If there’s anything else you need from me, you know that you can ask me,” the doctor says, deciding to be well-intended now. To offer the least that he can to someone that he cares about. “You shouldn’t have to go through this type of thing by yourself. Death is a difficult event to process.”

“Okay, I will,” Paul says, looking at him with a weakened grin, grateful. But past the façade, he looks so vacant; there’s nothing in his eyes, so void of everything. So tired. Understandably so. He raises his fingers to rub over his eyes, like he can wipe his grief away like the sleep sand of the morning and find clarity. If only it were that easy.

Unable to resist the pie that calls his name, and perhaps in some effort to fill an empty space inside of him, Paul swiftly gets up and easily cuts himself a hearty slice. He sits once more at the table to join him and begins to eat his dessert.

The spirit takes advantage of the lull between them and says _“Now might be a good time to start to tell him.”_ Christoph sits up on the couch, from what Flake can see in the corner of his eye. His presence was not forgotten, and the doctor briefly turns to give him a little nod while Paul isn’t looking. 

Straightening himself up in his seat, he decides there’s no time like the present. “If it’s alright with you, could I tell you something about Christoph?”

Dropping his fork onto his plate, Paul focuses once more on Flake and nods, leaning forward into the table to begin to listen to him. Eyes briefly flicking over to Christoph, who looks at the both of them intently, hanging on to every word, he begins this venture.

“I know that he loved you so much,” Flake tells him. “He told me how much he was in love with you all the time. We’d be out there smoking and he’d just tell me stories about you both.” A little bit of a lie; but this was not the time to inform Paul that he can see ghosts and that he’s currently seeing the spirit of his lover who has prompted him to pass on these memories.

“I remember once he told me about your first date, and how you braided flowers into his hair, and that there was a little bit of a mix-up with a birthday cake.” At this, Paul giggles. “Silly stuff like that. You guys were really happy together.”

“Yeah, we were,” Paul agrees. “I think so, at least.”

“I know that if he had a choice, he would’ve offered you a real goodbye, so that he could say all of this,” Flake proceeds. “I think that he’d want you to remember all of the good. I think he’d want you to keep going and to be happy even though he’s gone.”

Paul shakes his head, runs a hand over his face. “I know. I know.” He purses his lips, trying to maintain his composure despite the glossy wetness in his gaze. “But it’s really hard.”

“It is, for right now. But everything has to get better. It has to,” Flake tells him, and he knows that he’s said this before to countless people, as their loved one’s spirit stood beside him, and he’s never known if it’s helped. Dealing with a loved one’s death can get easier, but he doesn’t know if it ever gets easy. Even after all of this time of his parents passing, he misses them. Sometimes when he’s at his lowest and loneliest, he wishes they could be there, to guide him, to tell him that they’re proud of him. He wishes their spirits could’ve stayed a little longer, but that’s simply not how things should be. Destinies must finish; we all work so hard to deserve our peace. And the living must live with what the dead leave behind. For Paul, that may be the lessons of love and patience and acceptance and kindness that Christoph gave to him.

And sometimes, that’s the best that we can do. 

“I believe you. I’ll just need time.”

He sees Christoph approach his lover, silent and sure, and he raises his hand, to brush the back of it against his cheek. Then he moves to drape his arms around the chair and over Paul’s chest, resting his head on his shoulder, effectively holding him from behind. Paul doesn’t react – ghosts cannot be felt – but maybe it works to soothe Christoph, who knows that his time is short. Had he ever imagined that there would be a last kiss, a last touch? People work so hard to avoid the inevitability of the last moments of their lives, and try not to think that one day will be their last.

_“Tell him about the ring,”_ Christoph’s voice firmly comes, knowing that this time must come, and Flake agrees that this may be a good moment to introduce this, as well. 

“You know, Christoph told me a long time ago that he wanted you and him to be together forever. That he’d thought about marrying you.”

“We’d definitely talked about it and I said that I was interested.” Paul runs his hands through his hair and leans back in his seat. His voice sounds fragile when he speaks again. “I think I would’ve liked that. I would’ve said yes whenever he was ready.”

_“Thank God,”_ comes a laugh. Christoph is positively beaming, and he places kisses that Paul will never know existed into his blonde hair. _“I actually didn’t know whether or not he would!”_ Bittersweet for Flake, however, knowing that Paul would never get the chance to tell him face to face, voice to voice.

“That’s good to hear,” comes the doctor’s affirmation. “Because there’s something that he didn’t get a chance to give you.”

It doesn’t take longer than a second for Paul to freeze with the potential realization. Tears begin to gather in his eyes. “What?” Flake tries to string the words together, to gather the strength to break Paul’s heart. He’s been entrusted with this a few times, handing over dying secrets and confessions to families. Watching this young man’s face, and seeing the anguish of a future destroyed, intended to have been lived and experienced, and he has to tell him what could’ve been. Here’s what you’re missing out on, now go and live with it. It would be wrong to never tell him Christoph’s intentions and hopes. This must be done. So that he knows. Really knows. 

“He told me that on your guys’ bookshelf, behind his section of books, that he hid something for you.” 

There’s a silence that hangs between them. The realization comes and spreads on Paul’s face. He stands up so abruptly, that his dining chair falls behind him, and Christoph, in his earthly reflex, moves to avoid it. It’s a reaction that Flake wasn’t anticipating from Paul but doesn’t surprise him.

“No. _NO.”_ The intensity of the anguish pierces Flake’s heart, and he’s sorry. He is. But at least he knows.

Paul doesn’t say anything else, instead crossing the room, ripping open the door, and slamming it behind him. Not even a second later, he hears the same sound repeated as Paul goes into his own apartment. Leaving Flake and Christoph alone in the apartment.

Turning to face Christoph, he’s worried. “Did I say everything you wanted me to?” Flake asks, because he tried, he really did. He just hopes it was good enough. That he said what needed saying. 

_“Yeah. You did good.”_ Christoph smiles earnestly. _“Thank you.”_

“No problem.” That’s true. Flake forgot how gratifying that this gift could be. That it wasn’t given to him to make him suffer – that it was meant to help others. It’s something he lost sight of long ago, but begins to remember right then the true power of his ability. A force for good.

Crashing and banging can be heard through the wall, loud and abrasive enough that Flake imagines him ripping off all the books off the shelves. Then, an enormous explosion of noise as, presumably, Paul brings the whole bookcase down before settling into silence once more. Flake notices Christoph’s face twist with the worry.

“I’ll make sure that he’s okay for the next few days. He’s in good hands. Don’t worry.” He’ll go check up on him later once he’s calmed down some more. Give him some time to process this all.

_“Okay. I trust you.”_ That means a lot for Flake to hear. 

“Thank you.”

Christoph nods, and looks at the doctor sheepishly, nervously. _“I guess I’m done here. So. This’ll be the last time I’ll ever see you, Doc.”_

“I guess so. Fuck,” Flake mutters, and he can’t stop the tears from escaping his eyes. He turns away from the specter to try to clean himself up with the hem of his shirt. 

_“I want to tell you that you were a very good friend to us and me,”_ Christoph says, sincere. _“And you were like family to me. I’m so happy to have known you. I love you, Doc.”_

The sentiment is shared. Typically, he’s a man that’s very guarded with his feelings, and is afraid to be vulnerable to others. However, it doesn’t feel strange when looks him in the eye and he tells him “I love you, too, kiddo. My son.” Flake never had children, but he figures Christoph and Paul to be as close to having them as he’s ever gotten or wanted to get. That was good enough for him.

_“I hope I’ll see you later,”_ Christoph tells him.

“I hope I see you, too.” 

It’s the blink of an eye. Christoph is there, and then he is gone. And he knows that Christoph has found peace.

Flake stands alone in the living room. He thinks that maybe, he has found his peace, too.


End file.
